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El Horrible's avatar

This seems to come down to a misunderstanding of what is meant by “science.” Horgan seems to be focused on the big, bombastic, super collider type of science. I can only hope that kind of science winds down sooner rather than later. But the scientific method as a problem solving tool isn’t going anywhere, and i doubt Horgan thinks it is ( but I could be mistaken).

I’m a pool guy, and scientists at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo ran a years long study to determine the actual source of calcium deposits forming on pool plaster. Was it the initial mix when the plaster was applied, or was it due to poor water chemistry maintenance? Pool guys everywhere rejoiced, and Plasterers rent their garments in lamentation when it turned out that it was the mix and not the water chemistry that caused the calcium deposits. Scientists could go on doing this sort of low cost, practically useful science for millennia, no problem.

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Robin's avatar

I've enjoyed reading your newsletters for a while now but haven't commented before . I'm a retired literature professor who enjoys reading (some) science writing (my dad, the geologist, who got me hooked on science fiction when I was in grade school, is probably the one to credit). I have always remembered a mini-lecture to me about plate tectonics that he gave one day when I was helping him label rocks for a quiz for his first-year class, mostly focusing on how long and difficult a process it was for the theory to be accepted.

The only thing that makes me feel qualified to comment on this post which is great is Horgan's bizarrre doomsday predictions about "science" following the (apparently downward spiralling and failing) paths of "literature, art, music, and philosophy."

Journalists (and others) have been yelling about the demise of literature for decades (in the 1990s, it was accusations of being "politically correct," "cultural Marxists," and oh, yeah, the destruction of "Western Civilization" by us getting rid of Shakespeare in order to teach Alice Walker!

Nowadays, it's accusations of being "woke" and (still) "cultural Marxists" and a complete failure to notice that Shakespeare is still taught and analyzed by scholars all over the world) because everybody is so busy freaking out about how "literature" is no longer limited only to straight white men (not to mention Shakespeare's hots for the young man in the sonnet sequence is openly discussed!).

So Horgan's argument collapses completely for that reason (and I won't be reading his book anytime soon). Although for an interesting approach to geology and literature, let me recommend someone I just discovered through a friend's recommendation: _Romantic Rocks, Aesthetic Geology_ by Noah Heringman because, you know, all these disciplinary boundaries people try to hard to police are also a major problem!

Oh, and my current scholarly projects involve the questions of racisms and J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, both the body of work and its reception (including the growing awareness of white supremacist fans of the Legendarium who are throwing temper tantrums all over the internet over the mere idea of a Black elf). So, prejudice, yep, still a relevant topic!

Link to the book: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801441271/romantic-rocks-aesthetic-geology/

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